As is known in the art, banks and other businesses or enterprises employ security systems in their facilities to protect against robbery and/or theft, as well as, other types of unwanted activity that may be perpetrated by patrons or other like individuals and/or the enterprise's own employees or personnel. Commonly, a security system may include one or more security cameras that monitor the facility being protected. As can be appreciated, one function of a security camera is to obtain an image or video of a perpetrator so that they may be identified therefrom. For example, the image or video may later prove useful in apprehending the perpetrator and/or as evidence when prosecuting the perpetrator. Of course, a security camera may also serve as a deterrent, insomuch as a potential perpetrator may be less likely to commit a robbery, theft or otherwise unwanted activity if they know that they might get caught in the act by the camera. Additionally, a security system may include an alarm that signals for and/or summons aid when the alarm is tripped or triggered. As can be appreciated, summoning aid at the time that a robbery or theft or other unwanted activity is currently underway can have significant advantages, e.g., timely summoned law enforcement personnel may be able to foil a perpetrator's plans altogether. Nevertheless, various implementations of the foregoing security features have certain drawbacks.
For example, security cameras are often fixed in place and/or cover a substantially constant field of view (FOV). Accordingly, a perpetrator can thwart the security system by avoiding the camera's FOV. Optionally, a camera may be configured to automatically pan back and forth or otherwise scan a selected region. However, the cyclical nature of the camera movements produced by the automated control can allow a clever perpetrator to predict the direction in which the camera will be pointed at any given time, and accordingly, the perpetrator may still be able to avoid the camera's FOV. In both the foregoing examples, the direction in which the camera is pointed is not responsive to any information or data that indicates where in a facility a perpetrator may be located or where the otherwise unwanted activity is taking place.
In another example, a remote control camera optionally may be manually operated by a security guard or other individual. Accordingly, the human operator may select or control the direction in which the camera is pointed to observe and/or record a particular region of interest. This option however has the drawback that a human operator is needed to manually control the movement of the camera.
As previously indicated, security systems are also commonly equipped with alarms that may be selectively triggered to signal for and/or summon aid when circumstances dictate, e.g., when a robbery or other unwanted activity is in progress. In a common implementation, however, the alarm has to be triggered manually, e.g., by a bank teller, cashier or other employee at the facility being protected by the security system. For example, the individual responsible for setting off the alarm may be required to push a button, turn a key, flip a switch or otherwise manually trigger the alarm at the appropriate time.
A manually triggered alarm has certain drawbacks. Notably, the individual having the responsibility for triggering the alarm may not do so for any one or more of a variety of reasons. For example, in the case of a robbery or other emergency situation, the individual may panic and forget to trigger the alarm or forget how to trigger the alarm. Alternately, a perpetrator may threaten an individual so that they are too frightened for their own safety to trigger the alarm or the perpetrator may physically block or otherwise prevent the individual from triggering the alarm. In the case of employee theft, the very employee which would be otherwise responsible for triggering the alarm may in fact be the perpetrator of the unwanted activity and accordingly choose not to trigger the alarm. Similarly, an individual responsible for triggering the alarm (e.g., a bank teller or cashier) may be colluding with the perpetrator to commit the robbery, and accordingly the individual chooses not to trigger the alarm. As can be appreciated from the foregoing examples, there are any number of reasons why an individual otherwise responsible for triggering a manual alarm may choose not to or otherwise be prevented from doing so.
Accordingly, a new and improved security system and/or method is disclosed that overcomes the above-referenced problems and others.